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Catrine Churches
Catrine is well supplied with churches: there are no less than four in the village. The parish church is built on the slope of the hill behind the village street, but instead of occupying a most prominent site as was doubtless anticipated, the houses shut it out almost entirely from view except in one or two places where there is a break in the line of street, and a path leads up the hill. It is rather a handsome edifice, recently crowned with a belfry in which a new bell was hung, a special memorial of Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee. On the steep slope in front lies the village churchyard, with straggling tombstones. The situation is a fine one, but it is rather a neglected spot, with long, rank grass waving over many a nameless grave. The church itself is more than a hundred years old. It was built as a chapel-of-ease a few years after the cotton-mills were erected. The parish church of Sorn was too far off for the villagers of Catrine to attend regularly, and even had they gone, the accommodation was inadequate. In the year 1792 a subscription-list for building a chapel-of-ease was set a-going. Promises which amounted to a large sum were easily obtained, but when the time came to implement those promises it was a different matter and only the sum of £80 was subscribed. Mr. Alexander of Ballochmyle came to the rescue and advanced £750 on the security on the seat rents, but he did not receive a farthing of either principal or interest for many years.
The church building is 80 feet long by 522.1 wide over the walls. The galleries were not built at first but a projection was left in front for the stairs to the galleries when they should be added. The first minister, the Rev. Robert Steven, was ordained in 1792. The living was only £60 a year, without manse or glebe, and the young minister complained of its insufficiency. In 1829 the chapel was purchased from Claud Alexander, Esq., of Ballochmyle, for £400, by the feuars of Catrine, who by their feu-rights are bound to maintain a chapel in connection with the Establishment, as well as a churchyard. In 1840 the galleries were added to the church. Thirty-five years ago there was no wooden flooring, only a bar under each seat for the feet to rest on, and the whole place had an earthy smell. The roof was leaking very badly also, and some parishioners, perhaps as much for a protest as for any great need, sat in church while it rained, with their umbrellas above their heads. In 1871 Catrine was erected into a parish quoad sacra, and the church was endowed. In 1874 the church was thoroughly repaired and renovated, the old pulpit was done away with and a platform for the minister took its place, new seats of pitch pine took the place of the old, plain unvarnished pews, and an organ was introduced. The church has recently once more undergone extensive repairs and alterations- heating, lighting, painting, and timber ceiling. A belfry was built above the principal entrance, and the sweet, mellow-toned bell is heard through the silence of the Sunday mornings calling the people to worship; and family groups, with sedate step, climb the kirk-brae, or young people lightly clamber up the long flight of steps to the open kirk-door. On the bell is a Latin inscription of which the following is a translation :-" Claud Alexander, gilded knight, together with the congregation, dedicated this bell placed in Catrine Parish Church, to the greater glory of God. J. C. Wilson and Co., Glasgow, founded it, 1897. 'Oh men, I call to you, and my voice is to the sons of men.' " It was first rung by Master Wilfrid Alexander, grandson of Major-General Sir Claud and Lady Alexander. On the outside of the church, above the principal entrance, there was a man's face carved in stone; whom it was meant to represent no one knows- saint or martyr, or distinguished parishioner. But the village children had no difficulty with the matter, and successive generations of strong lunged bairns shouted the following lines at the stoney, immobile features :
Many of Catrine's sons in far-off climes will be sorry to hear that "Hosey" has been now replaced by the Church of Scotland's Burning Bush.
When the cotton mills were built at Catrine they attracted a considerable working population at once, and although the general character of the people was of a high standard, it was not to he expected that so large a concourse, drawn from far and wide, should see eye to eye in all matters of church and state. Indeed, the diversity in point of religious worship displayed itself at once, and while some clung to the Established Church of the country, others thought little of walking many miles every Sunday to a church of the same dissenting denomination as that to which they had formerly belonged. Few people are so enthusiastic nowadays. Whether our views are more widely tolerant, or simply whether we are more indifferent, is a subject on which it is not safe to dogmatise lightly; but the fact remains. Old-fashioned people would not even sit under a minister for whom they had no personal liking, or who they thought was not quite sound in the faith, even if he belonged to the same denomination and was the only representative minister within miles. Within the last few years we saw an elderly woman, with a determined visage and kilted skirts, on a bitterly cold, snowy day, returning to one village from another to which she walked every Sunday to hear the minister of her choice while a church of the same denomination was within a few yards of her own dwelling! But what is the exception nowadays, was quite common two or three generations ago, and the dissenters of Catrine set out on Sunday mornings to Auchinleck, or Cumnock, or Mauchline. But old people and young children could not undertake such a journey, and in process of time the expediency of having churches nearer home occurred to many a one. A contingent set out for Mauchline every Sunday to the United Secession Church there, and as the number was considerable sixty or seventy years ago, the proposal to build a church in Catrine was often mooted. The United Secession minister of Mauchline, Mr. Walker, was an old man and nothing was done during his lifetime, but at his death, sixty years ago, thirty-three members of his church from Catrine were disjoined and formed the nucleus of a church in their own village. Then they proceeded to build, and soon an imposing edifice of red sandstone was erected at the turn of the Village Street on the road leading from Mauchline. For the time in which it was built it was really a handsome church, with tall, narrow, ecclesiastical windows and buttressed front, and from its position at the corner it was necessary to have it faced on three sides. Close by, a pretty manse was afterwards added. To this day there are few better country churches than that of Catrine U.P., and that fact is all the more creditable to its founders and architect, for the era to which it belongs is of the square, barnlike, two-rows-of-windows type. At first the exterior was the best of it, for the flooring was remarkable only for its absence, and a spar in front of each seat kept the feet of the worshippers from touching the bare ground. The pulpit was of the corkscrew description, with the precentor's desk directly under it. Now, needless to say, the church is floored; the seats are of varnished pine, the pulpit has given place to a modern platform, and an American organ is used in the church service. The precentor is not done away with, however, and he still sits in state beneath the minister, but now on a carved oak chair of a decidedly cathedral like aspect. Indeed, the chair was a gift, and a copy of an ancient cathedral chair, with the Latin mottoes carved upon the back :-" Sit laus deo:" "In pacem domine." The present minister, Rev. J. M. Copland, is the fourth minister of the church and has occupied its pulpit for the last thirty years. He is a man of note in the village, and his word has considerable power. He is a much-esteemed member of the Presbytery of Kilmarnock and Ayr, in which he has the honourable position of Presbytery clerk.
The Free Church and manse stand close beside those of the United Presbyterian. They are both far above the average country churches and manses, and form an exceedingly good commencement of a most picturesque village. The church was built in 1845, and the present minister is the Rev. Aeneas Gordon. The manse was erected in 1851.
There is another little church, built in one of the lanes leading up to the Established Church. It is a very small, red-brick erection, and belonged to the Evangelical Union (now the Congregational Union). The present minister is the Rev. James Hamilton.
The School Board of Catrine consists of seven members. There is a handsome school, with schoolhouse adjoining. The headmasters are thoroughly qualified (one of whom is also registrar), and there is an efficient staff of assistants. In these days there is no need of a school upheld by the Company.
There are few antiquities in or near Catrine. The name Catrine was not new when the village was built, but belonged to the land. It is said to have been derived from cateran, a robber, or sorner, or cattle-lifter- a name which speaks of the character of the inhabitants of the district, and gives a whole history in itself. In pre-Reformation days a chapel, dedicated to Saint Cuthbert, was built on the banks of the Ayr, on a piece of ground called St. Cuthbert's Holm to this day. The chapel belonged to the priory of Mauchline, which, in turn, belonged to the abbacy of Melrose. More than a hundred years ago several urns were found in St. Cuthbert's HoIm, urns of a very rude description and full of calcined human bones. When the bones were exposed to the air they crumbled into dust. Probably they were the remains of a period prior to the introduction of Christianity while the practice of burning the dead was still in existence. Possibly the chapel of St. Cuthbert was built on a spot rendered sacred to the people by an earlier kind of worship. Many Christian churches were purposely erected on such places.
Dr Matthew Stewart, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh, and of European fame for his high attainments in geometrical science, was a frequent visitor to Catrine. He was not a native of the place, but Catrine House belonged to him, and he paid many and protracted visits to his country residence. His son, Professor Dugald Stewart, succeeded to his father's property in Catrine and to his love of the spot. Burns experienced great kindness at their hands, and writes of them thus in
Burns frequently dined at Catrine House, and it was there he met and dined with Lord Daer. Burns wrote of the occasion
Lieut.-Colonel Matthew Stewart, son of Professor Dugald Stewart, succeeded his father as heritor in the parish, and built a new house on his property in a very commanding situation, and laid off the grounds with much taste. The old house still remains, with the date 1682 over one of its doors. It is now used as a farmhouse, although still rather distinguished looking, with its many pointed roof and deep-set windows. The old dining room, in which Burns, democrat though he was, felt a thrill of exaltation in breaking bread with a real live member of the aristocracy, is still shown. It is not a very large room, but comfortable looking and well lighted. Burns in one of his songs again mentions Catrine:-
Catrine woods were yellow seen
The flowers decayed on Catrine lea.
List Of Ministers
The Rev. Robert Steven was ordained as Established minister in Catrine on 12th September 1792. He laboured till 1798, and was succeeded by a Mr Harley. From the leaving of Mr Harley in 1804, till 1815, there was no settled minister. In 1815 Rev. James Currie was unanimously elected and ordained. Rev. Wm. Hutcheson succeeded Mr Currie, and was ordained, 28th December 1836. Mr Hutcheson " went out" in 1843. The seceders kept possession of the chapel till interdicted, 19th February, 1844. For a time services were carried on by the assistant of Rev. John Rankine, Sorn. Rev. Wm. M'Robie was next ordained in 1851, and Rev. James Bell Biggar was ordained in 1855. In 1870 Catrine was erected a Quoad Sacra Parish, with Rev. Pearson M'Adam Muir, now minister of Glasgow Cathedral (D.D., University, Glasgow), eminent as a preacher, and author of a Church History. At Catrine Dr. Muir was succeeded by Rev. Thomas Philip, M.A., who died 1876. The vacancy was filled by Rev. James Buchanan, B.Sc., translated to Eaglesham in 1881. The next minister was Rev. James Gilmour Baillie, who was ordained, 9th March, 1882, and died in 1893. Rev. Hugh Callan, M.A., was ordained, November, 1893. Mr Callan is author of several works, chiefly on travel,- a little handbook on "Jerusalem," "Through Europe on Foot and Wheel," and "From the Clyde to the Jordan."
The first minister of the Secession (now U.P.) Church was Rev. John Young, who was ordained in 1838 and left in 1843. He was succeeded in the same year by Rev. J. K. Millar, who left in 1846. In 1849 the Rev. Thomas Bowman was ordained, whose ministry continued till his removal in 1866. The present minister, Rev. James M. Copland, M.A., was ordained in 1857.
The first minister of the Free Church was Rev. J. M'Gowan, who was ordained in 1844 and died in 1874. He was succeeded by the present minister, Rev. E. Gordon, M.A., in 1875.
Catrine E.U. Church was one of the earliest formed of that denomination. Rev. R. Hunter was ordained in 1845 and left in 1857; Rev. J. Reid, ordained in 1858 and left in 1860; Rev. James Foote, ordained in 1863 and left in 1867; Rev. D. Greenhill, ordained in 1869 and left in 1874; Rev. J. Craig, ordained in 1875 and died iii 1884; Rev. R. Russell, ordained in 1884 and left in 1891; and Rev. James Hamilton (the present minister), ordained in 1894.
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